Summary: George Lockhart is a teacher in Communication and General Studies. He is divorced and has a son called Ben. George has a sleeping problem. This night is no exception. He hears the sound of the night. Cars squealing, bars pumping and drunken students laughing and cheering on their way home from the nightlife. But something is different tonight. A silent bump against his door forced its way trough the other sounds. There it was again. George gets up, opens the door and outside, on his doormat, lays a young girl trying to sleep. George is confused and asks the girl what she is doing outside his door. The girl snaps at George and she is not answering his questions. Ben is not home so George offers the girl Ben's bed for the night. The girl does not accept the offer and George locks his door again. Back in the warm bed George hears his neighbour yell at the girl.
George Street, Redfern
George Street, Sydney
English: Homeless man, Tokyo. Français : Un sans ...When George opens his door again the girl is gone. The neighbour says to George that he has sent the girl back to where she belongs.
As George crawls back into the bed he starts to fall into a deep, deep sleep, but is soon interrupted by the same silent bump against his door.
B: One of the themes in the text is homelessness. Homelessness is a problem in almost every country in the world. Not even a country like Denmark can say that it has not got homeless people. Of course there is a big difference of being a homeless in Denmark or in Mexico. Mexico is one of the countries with biggest homelessness in the world. This is caused by the desire of becoming an industrial country, like for example Denmark, France and almost every other country in Europe. To become an industrial country takes a lot of money, often borrowed from richer countries, and soon the becoming country is in deep debt. The money spend on becoming an industrial country is needed elsewhere and often it is the health care areas and poor people that are the losers in the money game. Because of the industrialisation, a lot of jobs have moved to the city. This causes many people to move into the cities, more than the city can hold. These people are forced to live on railroads and in rubbish dumps, in tin boxes, and survive by begging. I think that the writer wants people to open their eyes and see the growing problem. In the end after, the neighbour has sent the young homeless girl away, the main character hears a sound that tells him that the girl is back on his doormat. This ending symbolizes that we can not get rid of the problem just by sending the homeless people back on the streets or by ignoring them. I think the writer ads a sense of irony into the story by making the main character a teacher of Communication and General Studios. The main character does not know much about the homelessness, not even in the city he lives in. That is the irony. The people who were supposed to be experts in modern society do not even recognize the problem. The problems of poverty and globalisation in the world are many and big but I believe there is only one solution. The rich countries like USA, Denmark, England, Germany and France have to help the becoming countries, by donating money to the areas that need it the most.
Translation: After the Dunblane tragedy where a man forced his way into a Scottish school and shot 16 students and their teacher, a workgroup, established by the English government, has produced none less than 22 suggestions to make the English schools safer. The areas around the schools are to be enclosed and the school yards are to have electronically surveillance.
In addition the teachers must learn self-defence, since a growing number of students today act so violently that their teachers deny educating them. For example a headmaster from London was last year stabbed by two 15 years old teenagers when he wanted to stop them attacking one of his students.
George Street - forwards south end, Sydney (NSW)
English: Source: Joshua Sherurcij
English: A homeless man in Paris Français : Un sa...